ConHome survey. Almost three quarters of Party members say that the renegotiation was unsuccessful

This result is not necessarily a verdict on David Cameron personally. The question did not ask whether he worked hard. It did not ask if he had tried his best. It did not ask whether or not his labours have been fruitless. It did not ask whether or not there were pluses and minuses to last week’s summit outcome. It simply asked which of the two statements about was closer to respondents’ views.

It should not automatically be assumed that three quarters of Party member respondents therefore want Britain to leave the EU. There are subtleties within the answers we received in our survey on that question, and I will write about these tomorrow morning.

For all that, the thrust of responses is clear. Almost three quarters of Party members who replied said that the renegotiation has not been a success, while under a quarter said that it has.

Our special survey ran from Saturday until today, and has gained a bumper response: 2603 to date, the largest on record that I can find at a quick search. 912 of these declared themselves as Party members – a reminder that the name of this website is ConservativeHome, not ConservativeParty home, and that although lots of Party members respond to our surveys lots of non-Party members do too.

Indeed, if the replies of all respondents are taken into account, the proportion of those who believe that the renegotiation was unsuccessful rises to 79 per cent, with 17 per cent taking the opposite view. Were the responses of only those who do not declare themselves to be Party members to be counted, the total for the former view would rise above 80 per cent.

Which leaves the question of to what degree Party members who responded to this survey are typical of party members as a whole. 912 is of course no small sample. My best guess is that a poll of snapshot accuracy would find a higher proportion of repliers declaring that the negotiation had been successful, but that the difference between such a result and this finding would not be all that large. However, yours is as good as mine.